DataCore SANsymphony Reviews

Oracle OLTP benchmark to test how it improves the performance while using flash drive NVMe.

It is a well-proven, automated management tool in all dynamic provisioning, auto-tiering, great performance, parallel I/O, cache speed mechanism, etc. 

Parallel I/O, because there is no performance degrade nor cache hit when there is a 100% update and 70/30 read/write. There is no performance impact and latency is just 20 ms.

Unified storage (all block, objects, and files) should be in a single storage pool with unified storage concepts, hence providing the user with whatever they want.

One to three years.

SANsymphony is a hardware-independent solution that provides storage virtualization. We implemented SANsymphony because of its mirrors feature. So it allows you to store the data on two sides synchronously on a single storage server. However, that single storage server consists of two independent hardware boxes in two data centers, but it behaves like one storage server because it's mirrored. No other vendor was offering that kind of transparent behavior when we implemented it.

SANsymphony is flexible, with many potential options for implementation. SANsymphony's can be used with VMware, Hyper-V, or even with a hypervisor agnostic approach. It can also be used for strictly physical non-virtualized solutions.

SANsymphony is missing some features that vSAN has. For example, vSAN has a special feature called continuous data protection. It provides the ability to go back in time to a given moment. You can see what was on your disk in the past up to two weeks. That's a great feature because ransomware attacks are increasingly common, and that provides you some kind of protection.

I've been using different DataCore solutions for about 15 years.

SANsymphony's scalability is huge. 

I rate SANSymphony eight out of 10. I believe it's a great product with many excellent features. 

We have been using DataCore SANsymphony for many years to protect data-availability and keeping productive. It helps us to improve reliability for our complete IT solutions.

In the time of using DataCore SANsympohny Hyper-converged-Infrastructure, we had no storage-related downtime in our environment. The server and storage functionality works, and maintenance is easier to handle depending on the redundancy.

DataCore is an administrator's and users' friend.

Performance boost (MegaCash, Parallel I/O technology) and Continuous data protection (CDP) are the features we love most because security and being productive are big points for us.

DataCore is helping us focus on our core business and keep it running, which is important for our customer success.

Supporting of Automated-Storage-Tiering (AST) is a good feature that saves money.

We are waiting for container support (on the roadmap), as well as a user-friendly full web-administration capability, and an improved API.

Supporting newer Windows Server versions faster (e.g. Microsoft Windows Server 2019) would be nice.

This solution is very robust and reliable.

It has good scalability. We can scale up in 1TB steps.

We have found that technical support has good skill levels and availability.

We did not have another SDS solution before this one.

This initial setup of this solution wasn´t complex. The necessary functional test plan of the implementation company was time-consuming, but it guaranteed the correct implementation.

We implemented this solution using our solution provider with vendor support in the background, and it worked well for us.

Overall, we are happy with innovations, but in the future, we will also look into more improvements.

We can not afford periods for maintenance. So we need a solution with which we can provide appropriate high availability. 100% guaranteed with DataCore SANSymphony-V.

Our data centers are divided into three sections. It is possible that the provision of data is guaranteed in the event of an error. We use a three-way-mirror from DataCore SANSymphony-V.

• Three-way mirror synchronization of the data over three sections
• Auto-tiering: effective utilization of fast to slow memory areas
• CDP: Continuous data protection is an important part of our backup strategy.

The management: management should take place via OS-independent access. Here a web-based client would be desirable.

Runs very stable and therefore very trustworthy. Without that, a storage solution would be unthinkable.

The scalability is given in all directions (frontend and backend, capacity) to our requirements.

Very fast, very competent, short ways via mail or telephone.

HP EVA4400.

Simple, as the initial training by the manufacturer and the help is very good.

Initially through a system house, then through our in-house team.

One hour of production downtime is more expensive than the solution.

A very good price-performance ratio. The license model is very successful.

The data was only asynchronously mirrored; thereby there was no transparent failover.

No, it was almost perfect.

We use SANsymphony for all of our business-critical data. We run a dual host, VMware 6.7 host environment with a 25Gb/s network fabric connecting to mirrored SANsymphony nodes. We have two business systems running in this environment. One is running Red Hat Linux and Progress DB, whereas the other is running Windows and Microsoft SQL server.

I'd have to say that the biggest improvement gained by using SANsymphony has to be the performance of the product. When we migrated from our physical SQL server hardware storage to SANsymphony's software-defined storage, with its clever caching mechanism, we saw a huge increase in performance. This decreases the amount of time it takes to make a sale and keeps both our staff and customers happy.

SANsymphony is a very versatile product and its vendor's agnostic nature allows us to pick and choose our hardware platform. Its redundancy allows us to perform maintenance 'on the fly' and protects our data from all manners of failure.

As a policy, we tend not to over-commit our storage (a feature I'm sure others find really handy). There is no way of quickly matching the exact size of a vDisk to a disk pool.

I can't think of any other features that SANsymphony needs - it is a very comprehensive storage solution.

I use DataCore SANsymphony for the redundancy with two nodes. It's a good solution with a good price for a small infrastructure like us.

It has improved performance, security, RTO, RPO, and timeout. It has improved my organization with the prevention of a breakdown.

Redundancy and improved performance in terms of storage with auto-tiering are the most valuable features. 

It needs just two nodes for the operating system and licensing.

I would like for it to improve into a more ergonomic management console and a translation into the French language. It should have some process for a shutdown of a VM properly in case of a problem.

The stability is good for the moment.

I feel that the scalability of this solution is very good.

This is our first solution in the world of the hyperconvergence.

Our ROI is from good security.

Storage costs are better with DataCore SANsymphony.

The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore.

I compared it with vSAN.

Good support, very reactive.

With DataCore we manage the central storage for VMware virtualisation and Oracle databases. At the first location are two mirrored DataCore servers. At a second site, we use a DataCore server as an asynchronous replication target.

It is easy to manage the storage and simple to enlarge our virtualisation environment. 
DataCore SANsymphony has improved performance, stability and data security of our datacenter.

• The most useful features are the continuity of service, mirroring and auto-tiering, and the associated performance. 
• We enjoy great reliability, flexibility, and performance. 
• DataCore helps to use memory efficiently.

• The client console should be improved. It starts slowly and heavily. 
• After a long time (idle), the displayed information is no longer completely reliable. You have to close and reopen the console for current data. (symptom after upgrade to PSP8)

Very stable, no failures, no interruptions.

High scalability.

quick support enabled  ;-)

No, we did not.

The initial setup was straightforward, no special hardware, good documentation.

Implementation with a DCIE (DataCore certified implementation engineer).

Not calculated.

For installation and upgrades, work with a good IT partner with a DCIE.

EMC, NetApp.

Our primary use case is for a high-availability and redundant storage system with fast read and writes times with low latency.

DataCore SANsymphony has improved our organization by using much less hardware for storage. The power consumption and heat have decreased, so we were able to shut down one air conditioner. Also, it is a faster storage system.

The features I have found most valuable are the active-active, or so-called grid technology, and the integration into our VMware vCenter. Our vCenter is now much easier to manage.

An easier way to open a service call, right through the DataCore GUI, would be an improvement, especially when there is an urgent issue.

Although we have just started to use DataCore, we are very happy with the stability of this solution.

The scalability of this solution is very good.

So far, we have not had to contact customer support.

We used the IBM SAN Volume Controller and switched to DataCore. In our case, it was possible to use less hardware and get more performance.

The initial setup was not complex. The migration was fast and we experienced no problems.

We implemented this solution through a partner company.

The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing.

We have some experience with IBM storage solutions.

I recommend taking a look at DataCore because it is a simple-to-use product that saved us from spending more money on additional hardware and support.